How community-based enumerations started and developed in India

This paper explains how community-driven enumerations were first undertaken in Janata Colony in Mumbai, India in the early 1970s as a way of fighting the threat of eviction. Jockin Arputham was a resident of Janata and was drawn into community organizing to fight this eviction. The enumerations provided evidence of the importance of Janata’s economy and of the many legal facilities there, including electricity and telephone poles and licensed shops. This supported the residents’ case in court that Janata was a legal settlement. Undertaking the enumerations helped mobilize the population and provided them with information about their settlement that helped them consider their priorities. The paper also describes how enumerations of pavement dwellers helped them get a legal address, and through this ration cards, and a dialogue with municipal authorities. The author suggests that surveys of informal settlements are needed before any physical development is planned; also that they should be undertaken by the residents and their community organizations, to learn, to mobilize and to plan their own development so that they are not dependent on outsiders doing so.